


Cathedral of You (Ordered Narrative)

by Omnibard



Series: Cathedral of You [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cor's Reputation Demands Big Things, Mild Interrogation, Neurological Trauma, Nosebleed, Or Surpass, Psychic Abilities, There's A Legend To Live Up To, not the funny kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnibard/pseuds/Omnibard
Summary: (This is the official, ordered narrative of 'Cathedral of You'.  I'm not a terribly decisive or organized person, but this story is important to me, so instead of a jumble of one-shots arranged on a timeline, I'm going to try my damndest to make it into a cohesive multi-chapter fic.  This is converted from the standalone "Pulling an Immortal" fic.  I apologize for any confusion...)





	Cathedral of You (Ordered Narrative)

The Marshal of the Crownsguard had finished reading Antal Drusus’s report.  He’d finished _hand-carrying_ Antal Drusus’s paid convalescent leave paperwork (‘return to duty’ date purposefully left blank) to all the proper desks to get all the correct signatures and seals.  He _hadn’t_ finished deciding whether or not Antal Drusus needed medical _retirement_ (full benefits), a promotion, or a _very stern lecture_ and a _desk,_ but that, he admitted, was a long decision process.

So now he was cleaning up Antal Drusus’s loose ends because the man had _asked_ him to in the hospital.

 

Antal had been sent to confirm the reports of Niflheim base growth in Cleigne-- he’d volunteered for the tasking.  So when a report came from the southwestern border of _Niflheim_ , it became clear that Antal was ‘pulling an Immortal’ and changing the script on the fly.

That’s what the Crownsguard called it in low murmurs where they thought the Marshal couldn’t hear: “pulling an Immortal”--making their own objectives outside the parameters of the mission given them, without reporting back first.  The trouble was, every Crownsguard _but_ ‘The Immortal’ who tried, either died in the process or returned to negative repercussions for failure to report.  Most died.

Mrs. Drusus worked as a clerk in the Citadel.  When her husband did not return on time, she began to haunt the Marshal.  Every day, she’d stop him in some corridor and ask if he had an update on Antal.  She was never rude or teary, she simply asked the question, and thanked him when he assured her _again_ that he’d make sure she knew when he was on his way home.  Every day, for eight months.

Apparently during his time in Niflheim, Antal had stumbled upon some kind of weapons depot with an underground bunker that served as some kind of laboratory.  Though similar to the various MT production plants the Crownsguard had discovered (and labored to destroy), it was clear from most of the equipment that this laboratory was designed to support human life.  There were a number of full-body tanks, but all of them were empty save one. He’d only discovered it _wasn’t_ empty when trying to open a sealed door, which caused a short in the entire facility.

The tanks opened, and the girl dumped out.

Antal had three children, two of them girls, and therefore the motivation behind his next actions were clear.  He put his coat on the mysterious tank girl and carried her back to Lucis on his back, regardless of the compounded risk and his busted knee.  They both almost died in the frozen tundra. At the border crossing. In Cleigne, and all the way to Lestallum where he finally was able to make a phone call to get an evac and medical care.

When finally returned to Insomnia (and Monica finally got to deliver the joyful news to Mrs. Drusus), both were medically evaluated.  Antal was placed in the hospital to treat his numerous injuries. The girl was moved immediately to facility #24.

It was a place that wasn’t.  A small, unassuming building on a small lot just outside the checkpoint that connected the Citadel to the industrial sector of Insomnia.  It featured a number of empty, soundproofed rooms and a medical facility staffed by a doctor and a pharmacist. The girl had been in the care of the medical facility for two weeks before being placed in one of the soundproofed rooms.  A Crownsguard Perscom Specialist had been requested, but after his meeting with Antal at the hospital, and reading the man’s dictated report notes, the Marshal had put the request on hold and gone _himself_.

This was only Cor’s second time in facility #24.  Regardless of his prior--rather extensive--experience in gathering enemy intel through interrogation in years past, within the walls and jurisdiction of the Lucian Council, his ‘expertise’ was not welcomed.  Nobody came here except to be pumped for information, but the _process_ was so _different_ from what he remembered on the field.  Out _there_ , Cor was able to glean every important name, timeline, and location from a Nif in three hours with nothing but a campfire and a knife.  With _just_ a knife, and even under artillery fire, he’d been able to extract necessary information to _stop_ the bombardment within the half-hour.

But that had been on the battlefield.  Interrogations didn’t work like that _here_ .  POWs and POIs held a legally protected status within the walls of Insomnia, and any unnecessarily harsh treatment reported would bring consequences from the Council.  The Marshal could respect the need to treat enemy soldiers with at least _rudimentary_ human dignity off the battlefield--and so close to civilians--so he simply kept out of facility #24 and waited for reports.

After the Glacian’s attack, and subsequent _death_ , most Niflheim troopers weren’t even human anymore, anyway.  The facility had fallen largely into disuse and the Perscom and medical specialists employed there had been more-or-less reassigned to other departments.

 _She’s special_ .  Astal had told Cor insistently.   _She’s_ **_special_ ** _, sir._

So Cor went.  But he also went because this was the _second person,_ in less than two decades, that one of his agents had taken out of that frozen hellscape, from the bowels of a laboratory, and brought back.  The first one had been an infant. This one was at least old enough to talk. Astal didn’t know how old she was, but he called her ‘little’ and ‘a kid’, and the man was only thirty, and five-foot-seven himself.

There was a Crownsguard posted outside the door to the girl’s cell, “Evening, Marshal.”

“Balint,” Cor greeted neutrally, “What’s the status?”

“She’s quiet, sir.  Doesn’t say much, but she follows directions all right.  She ate yesterday, but not today.” The younger, ginger-haired man told him.

“Is she bound?”

“No.  But she doesn’t move when someone is in there with her.  Not at all, Marshal. Freezes and _stares_.” Balint shifted uneasily under the scrutinizing look, “... I can bind her if--”

“-- No.” The Marshal stepped toward the door. “Who’s in the booth?”

“Cez is, sir.” The Crownsguard opened the door and Cor stepped through into the low-light.  Facility #24 subscribed to a classic concept of interrogation rooms-- a single overhead inset lamp over a simple table and pair of chairs across from each other.  Both table and chairs were made of stainless steel and neither had any sharp corners or edges. A doorway led back into a smaller space where a cot and latrine waited in relative privacy. Smaller, warmer insets circled the perimeter of the room, so that it was not cast in stark contrast with deep shadows.

The girl was seated on the floor against the wall under one such light.  With her knees pulled against her chest, she certainly _seemed_ small, but Cor was immediately aware that she was much older than he’d surmised from everything he’d been told.

She was a teenager-- closer to twenty than ten.  Long dark hair hung around her shoulders and upper arms like a shroud, wide, dark eyes fixed on him, and thin arms tightened around long folded legs.  She’d been given simple scrubs from medical below, and they were large for her underfed frame.

Cor pulled out his cellphone, glanced at the camera in the corner near the ceiling that fed to the booth, and turned on the voice recording app on his phone.

“Sit in the chair.  There.” He commanded the girl in the scrubs, pointing.

She moved slow, hesitant, arriving at the destination and sitting on the edge of it, fingers knotting in the fabric of her pants at her thighs.

Hands folded in front of him, cellphone held in the lower one, Cor did not go and sit, “Who are you?”

She stared at him from the curtain of her brown hair, and remained silent.  The Marshal met that look with his own, unwavering and devoid of sympathy for several seconds before she shrank from him, shivering.

Cor spoke as he approached the table, “Antal told me you can speak, and you’re _expected to._  We’ve expended a lot of resources and energy retrieving you.  Now you have to prove it was worth it.”

“A-Antal…?” She whispered, “... Is… is he…?”

“He’s in the hospital with his family.”

“... I-I’m so...so glad.” She wrapped her arms around herself.

He let that sentiment linger in the room a moment before dragging the empty chair away from the table with a brief scrape-- causing her to flinch like he’d struck her--and sitting, arms folding across his chest, “Who are you?”

She shook her head, silent.  Cor could not read her face, not even under the bright overhead light, it was cast in shadow from the curtain of her hair and her tucked chin.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

She shuddered.

“ _Look_ at me.” He let years of command swell and sharpen his tone without betraying any hint of frustration.

Another flinch and she raised her chin just enough that he could see the confusion and terror twist her features, shining wildly in her eyes, “Hhhh…”

He’d seen many, _many_ men die with that expression on their faces.

“What were you doing in that facility where Antal found you?”

She trembled violently, the metal chair rattling faintly against the floor.  He was losing her.

If he ever had her to begin with.  Cor considered calling for the Perscom specialist after all…

“If you don’t answer any of my questions,” He informed her blandly, “then I’m going to have to make up my own answers.  You don’t want that. I’m not very creative.”

He wanted her to ask.  He wanted her _thinking_ .  He needed to get her somewhere beyond _shivering_ like a cornered mouse.  She did not humor him, consumed by fear, her eyes were wide and unfocused.

It was eerie.  Cor knew how to wield fear-- was very good at it-- and he’d not applied it very much at all.  Certainly not enough to warrant this mind-numbed reaction.

“Do you know who _I_ am?” If she were a spy or a soldier or a weapon in the making-- a tool of Niflheim-- it stood to reason that his reputation would precede himself.   _That_ might warrant…

“Hhh…”

The Marshal stood again and headed for the door, “You think about my questions.  When I come back, you’ll answer them.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

\------------

Cor did not mind admitting that he’d made the rookie mistake of assuming that because Antal had said the girl was able to talk-- and had spoken with him-- that she’d be capable of speaking to _him_ , and willing to do so.

He sat straight-backed in the steel chair across from the girl, one hand on the table, cellphone recording on the corner, out of her reach.  He watched her, watched how she shrank by degrees down and away from him, watched how her eyes rested anywhere but on his face-- mostly on the table and his hand.

“Antal is very concerned about you,” He said at length, “he asked me to make sure you were taken care of.”  It was true, but the softness in it chafed-- softness was a very limited resource to be dispensed very _very_ sparingly, and only when dealing with his friends, or--if required-- innocents.  This girl was certainly not the former, and did not immediately qualify for the latter.  That had yet to be _determined_.

Still, he made himself do it to get something other than _staring_ and _shaking_ out of her.

“...Y-you’re th-the M-Marshal.  C-Cor. Th-The Imm-mm-mortal.”

“Yes.” Was his admission, “Did Antal tell you about me?”

She nodded.

“What did he say?”

“Y-you’re his boss…” She shivered, “P-please… don’t kill him.”

“What?”

“H-he said you would…”

Cor could imagine Antal in the frozen snowplains, tromping through knee-deep drifts against blizzard winds, girl on his back, bitching under his breath about how _‘if I ever get back to Insomnia, the Marshal’s going to fuckin’ kill me for this shit’._  For a moment, he considered trying to leverage the threat, but decided against it-- he needed her to keep talking.  “He’s safe. I’m glad he’s back.”

She chewed her lower lip and nodded.

“How did you get to the city?  How did you get _here_ ?” Of course, he _knew_ this answer, but that was exactly the point.  If he couldn’t cut straight to what he _needed_ to know, then he’d work his way from what he _did_ know.

She looked down at the table a long time, chewing her lip, and the Marshal could see her mind working where the lamplight illuminated her dark eyes. “... A truck.  But… I slept a lot.”

“Before the truck, you were in another city.  How did you get _there_?”

She was silent, and Cor was about to speak up again, to prod her, but she raised her eyes to roughly his chest-level and said quietly, “...You already know this.  Why-why ar-are y-you--?”

“--You’ll answer the questions I _ask_ and we’ll get through this,” He cut her off sternly.

Her eyes dropped to the table in front of her again.

Eyes narrowing, the Marshal repeated his question, “How did you get to the other city?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

She shivered and shook her head, silent again.

“ _Look_ \--”

She’d lowered her chin again, hiding her face, and so Cor had moved to reach across the table and-- well he hadn’t quite decided whether he’d jerk her face back up at the chin or brush her long hair roughly behind her shoulders so she couldn’t _hide in it_ anymore, but it didn’t matter.  He never got that far.

Suddenly something struck him right between the eyes, brutally driving through his skull like a spear.  It blinded him, and all at once his sinuses and nose filled with liquid _fire_ and exploded with blood while the contents of his stomach clawed its way violently up his throat.  Already moving to gain his feet, the Marshal was upright--fighting muscles that seemed to seize and lock up--his katana was summoned to his hand to defend himself, while his stomach cramped painfully and his bladder emptied.  Though his pulse was hammering in his ears, he heard a metal chair clatter to the floor, but he didn’t know which one it was.

He was mid-draw when the room suddenly bled back into view.  The table was still between them, and the girl’s chair was knocked over, with her cowering back against the wall again, staring at him in horrified shock, hyperventilating in loud, whimpering gasps.  Her terror was so absolute, Cor suspected she was just as shocked by the sudden… attack?... as he was.

“Don’t.  Move. Until.  I. Get. Back.” He ground the words out harshly, not recognizing his own voice, surprised at the raw quality of it, born by the extensive effort required to shape and voice each word.  What the hell had happened to him?

Commanding steadiness and calm he did not feel, the Marshal made his way to the door and out into the corridor again.

“Marshal?!” The guard spluttered upon seeing him.  Cor waved him off and made his way down the passage to the door on the far end and let himself in.

The booth was a small, dark room with a console full of screens for camera feeds for each of the interrogation rooms and the medical ward.  The room was designed for monitoring and recording everything that happened in each cell. On the live screen for the room he’d just left, Cor saw that the girl was following his directions and had not moved in the slightest, huddling against the wall.

Cez was a short-haired woman with severe features and diminutive stature.  She’d been on her way out when he walked in, apparently in a rush, and the Marshal gathered she’d been moving to his _aide_.

“Play it back.” He ordered when she stumbled to a halt before running full-long into his chest.

“You should see a doctor, sir--”

“--Play it _back_.”

Nodding despite her frown and misgivings, Cez returned to the console, Cor on her heels, and she replayed the recorded video on the screen below the one showing the live feed.  They watched him reenter the room, sit in the chair, and begin his questioning. Cor watched the girl, focusing on her hands.

In the video, Cor started to lunge forward, then he jolted and stood upright, body clenching rigidly, blood spraying from his nose onto the front of his clothes, his side of the table, and the floor, his katana appearing from the Armiger and into his hand, other hand moving to draw it.  The girl leapt to her feet in alarm, knocking the chair over, and she backpedaled to the wall.

“Go back.  Slow it down.”

They watched it again, slowing the video playback.  Cor’s slacks were uncomfortable and clammy where the urine-soaked material was beginning to cling to his groin and inner thighs.  His nose itched and his throat burned with the taste of blood and bile. He watched the girl, watched her hands.

She never seemed to move.

“Again.”

In the live feed the girl didn’t move either.  Cor noticed he’d left his cellphone on the corner of the table, still recording.  On the recording playback screen, Cez had paused the feed to just before he’d started to move across the table.

“I’ll step it forward from here, sir.  It’s quick, but I can probably get close to a frame-by-frame.”

“Good.  Do it.”

Together they studied each still-image.  His face hurt, his skull throbbing in scarlet waves of pain, and his eyes and sinuses burned-- a dull, salty sensation as opposed to the _lava_ that’d preceded the violent nosebleed-- but the Marshal studied the screen carefully.

She never moved.  He lunged toward her and something _else_ had stopped him.  Something invisible and _effective_.

“Could it be magic?   _Magitek_?” Cez queried.

He brought up a hand to pinch between his eyes-- or rub where they itched-- but his fingers were covered in blood and snot, so he dropped his hand again, “Don’t know.  Usually has a tell, though…”

Cez looked from the playback to the live feed, then at the Marshal’s face, “... You should go to medical, sir.”

“They got a shower down there?”

“It’s not fancy, and the water’s never warm, but yeah.” Her severe face pinched, “I’ll call down--”

“--You’ll do nothing of the sort.  I’m taking a shower, changing my pants, and going back in.”

“Marshal, that-- we don’t even know what happened to you!”

He was already heading for the door, head pounding.  Cold water would feel good about now… “I’m fine. No reason to let her think she’s gotten an upper hand.”

Cez looked at the live feed screen again, “... Sir, no disrespect, but she doesn’t _look like_ she’s celebrating a victory right now…”

“Good.  Let’s keep it that way.”

\------------

It took him longer than he liked to get back to the interrogation room.  His pounding, buzzing head had brought dizziness and nausea, and he was unwilling to submit himself to a medical exam regardless of the wide-eyed looks he was getting from the tech on duty, both of which delayed him.

Balint wisely said nothing about his scrubs and simply opened the door for him to reenter.  Cor went in, collected his phone, stopped the recording, started a new one and set the cellphone back down-- somewhat amazed he had zero missed calls or texts.  The girl was still cowering against the wall, but she watched him when he entered, and continued to watch him as he went to her side of the table to pick up and right her chair.

“Sit in the chair.” He ordered quietly, “And pull your hair back out of your face.”

She didn’t move, only stared at him, shivering.  He stared back, pinning her with his gaze for several long seconds before speaking again, “If you think I won’t drag you, you’re wrong.”

“Hhhh…” Very slowly, she tucked her legs and crawled to the chair before climbing into it.  After another piercing look, she brought up badly shaking hands and pulled her hair back behind her shoulders.

“What did you do…” Cor didn’t get a chance to finish his question before the girl’s courage broke entirely, causing her to burst into tears, sobbing hysterics into her hands, doubled-over her lap.  The lights flickered, and then _exploded_ into sparks and darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Ariel, Antal, Balint, and Cez belong to me. Everyone else belongs to SquareEnix.
> 
> Got questions? Want to talk about it? [Here's your mic! ](https://mtraki.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
